Wednesday, January 20, 2021

I-Cut-You-Choose Worker Placement -- thoughts on a theme

 I'm still looking for a theme for that I-Cut-You-Choose Worker Placement game...

I still think the way it would work makes sense: 

  1. Seed some spaces with ~6 cubes, 
  2. Place your worker where there are cubes, 
  3. Do a thing based on the number/colors of cubes there,
  4. Split the cubes between 2 of the adjacent spaces, 
  5. Repeat

I solicited theme ideas on Twitter, and got a few responses, one of which seems promising to me. Jonathan Weaver said: 

Wow I love the mechanism and I think a theme of widespread exploration of a new land and the color cubes are different skilled explorers (i.e. huntsman, trappers, cartographers, sailors, scouts, etc.) Then the game is about who can use the conscripted explorers best each split.

I liked the sound of sending, for example, a cartographer and a scout this way and a scout and trapper that way, then you choosing the scout/trapper and as a result get some furs, then sending the scout here and the trapper there.

Each unit type would need an effect, and there could be some combinatorial effects. Like maybe a scout amplifies the effect of another worker (cartographer makes a better map, trapper finds more animals).

My initial thought was that you'd add tiles to the board spaces, changing them for everyone (and maybe like Caylus, you get benefit when someone uses your tile). "Buying" tiles based on which unit types are there could represent effects of certain combinations of units.

Thinking about this a little more, it definitely sounds workable:

Players are officers in an organization that has sent multiple colony ships full of cryogenically frozen specialists out into the black, seeking a new homeworld. Now that we've arrived, groups of specialists are "thawing out," and we're directing them to do their thing, and then splitting them into smaller groups and sending them to adjacent sectors.

Each ship generates ~6 random specialists (colored cubes) each round. You place a worker on a sector with specialists to build a tile there, of 15 different tiles, each with a 2-color cost (those 2 colors of specialist must be present). Each tile gives 2 effects, 1 for each specialist required (so there are ~6 specialist effects in the game). 

If you place in a sector with just 1 cube, you get that color's effect, then take the cube to use later... Maybe you spend it to build when that color isn't present, or maybe you spend it for that color's effect in addition to a normal turn.

And I think an effect tied to the sector would be good, so there's a geographical element as well. Like maybe when you activate a building, you get the effect of the sector (and maybe you can do this instead of building, so long as you have either of the specialists related to the building present, or maybe in hand). "In hand" could be neat, so in the early game you're placing workers in sectors with more cubes, for better choice of tile to build, and you're building new stuff onto the board, then later you're placing workers to grab up singleton cubes in order to activating that stuff.

Maybe the tiles you build are on your player board, and the goal is to get yours all into play? I'm not sure about that, or what "winning" would represent, but in general this kind of theme -- with the cubes being units with specific jobs, and players bossing groups of those units around -- sounds to me like it makes sense and fits the mechanism.

What I really need is a discrete ability for each specialist, a "building" or whatever that makes sense for each pair (6 types => 15 different "buildings"), and some sector-specific effects before I could put together a prototype and try this out. I'm open to suggestions in the comments below!


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